A great week!

Update: I just got registered for the Dirty Kanza 200! This is one of the best gravel grinders ever! Consider it!

Sorry for the lack of posts to you few readers out there! This has been a very productive week really! I have been back to work this week and have been incredibly busy. That is good though.

As for my running things are coming together. My right knee is a bit sore, but not from running. You see, I have this horrible habit of having my legs in weird positions while I sit. This has led to many problems for me and my running over the years. Here are a couple of examples. Since you are probably reading this while seated look down at your heals. Now put your heals on the legs or the base of the chair. You will see that your achilles tendon shortens as your heal rises. This is very bad! After having all kinds of calf and achilles problems I walked into my favorite physical therapist's office in the world and he saw me sitting in the waiting room. He said, "So you are having achilles and calf pain?" I said, "Yes I am! It sucks!" He said, "Well, it is the way you are sitting." I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. He showed me what I was doing and then asked me to put my feet flat on the floor in front of me while sitting and then slide my heals back until the heal wants to lift up off the floor. So, while seated at my desk I would change how I put my feet on the floor and within a week I was back to 100 percent. Of course, this advice cost me a $100, but it was worth every cent!

Now I am dealing with my patellar tendon hurting. It isn't runners knee, it is how I have my lower legs positioned while working. You see, last Sunday I put in a 14 hour day barely taking a break while sitting at my desk. I kept putting my right foot angled off to the side putting stress on the inside of the patella tendon. Fortunately, my physical therapist (which I haven't had to go to now for four years!) has taught me to be aware of the little things that I do that lead to injuries. So, I have been very careful to notice how I am sitting this week and I am definitely getting better.

So, this week I have put in about 19 miles or so. Obviously not a lot, but all of it has been quality. This is what I have been doing.

Day 1. Run 7-7.5 miles within 60 minutes all with the treadmill set at random. What this does is randomly select the angle of the hill your climbing, which means I am running up hill the whole run. I run these as fartlek's so I am going from 9:30 pace at the beginning to warm up to 8 minute to 7:30 pace and back to 8:30 pace and so forth.

Day 2. I run around 6 miles with 2 miles as a warm up and then run a quarter of a mile repeat at 6 minute pace with a slow run cool down (10 min. pace)for another .25 miles. This week I did two .25 X 6 min. pace, then 2 X 5:45 and then 1 X 5:30 pace. Then another 2 mile cool down. Six minute pace is feeling reasonable for a mile now so that is exiting. Gone are the days of high school were I could run a 5 minute mile!

Day 3. Run around 6 miles with a 2 mile warm up at around 9:30 pace. Then I would run .50 miles at 7:00-7:20 pace with a .50 miles at 8:30 pace. This tempo run works great and I will continue to lengthen the 7:00-7:20 distance.

All of these are run on the random setting. By running up hill consistently it helps to make the pace on level ground that much easier!

I feel I am on my way to my goal of running a 5:45 mile for the Presidential Fitness Award that my high school students are trying to achieve. I have to prove to the PE teacher that even I can do this!

I will be biking more and more now that we are in January. Be on the look out for updates on this.

Happy training.